Agents In The Field
by FiresofAnarchy
Summary: A collection of one shots featuring various characters from The Pinkertons.
1. How A Man Chooses To Die

**Agents In The Field**

 **How A Man Chooses To Die**

 **This is a first but I'm actually transferring some AO3 to here for once. Back when I first wrote this there wasn't a The Pinkertons tag to upload to so I kept it over on AO3. That's actually one of the reasons I got an AO3 account in the first place. It's been over a year since I updated this and I had been waiting until I wrote something new to move it over here. I was doing some other housekeeping on summaries and stuff and eventually just decided to get my two accounts on the same page finally. So here it is my fic for a show that's perhaps even more underrated than most of the stuff I write for. I caught an episode late at night once and was instantly intrigued. Eventually I binged the whole thing on Netflix only for it to be canceled. Here's my fic about the cliffhanger that we're never going to get an actual resolution to. I was listening to Welcome To The Black Parade when I wrote this. I hope you like it.**

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The two guns fired at almost exactly the same time and Will saw his own bullet hit its target only moments before feeling a similarly fired bullet hit him in the chest. As his vision started to blur around the edges his only regret in the whole thing was that Kate had been around to witness it. He could faintly her calling his name from a distance that was becoming increasingly indiscernible. He could also make out vague coughing sounds though whether they were coming from himself, Jesse, or both was equally indiscernible since he couldn't particularly feel anything to know for certain if it was himself or not.

The sounds of footsteps echoed from somewhere around him and before he knew it Kate was in his line of vision with a grim look on her face. Not that he didn't already know but the look on her face confirmed that it was in fact a bad wound and not something easily remedied. He tried in vain to push her hands away as she proceeded to start grabbing for him in an effort to lift him to his feet. There was no way she could carry him and she knew that as well he did, the effort was still appreciated though.

"Will come on," she said urgently. "We need to get you back to town so a doctor can get a look at you."

"Can't," was the only word that escaped his lips.

"We need to get you to your feet," she said ignoring him. "There's a horse with me we can use to make it back."

"Can't," he repeated. The feeling in his arms and legs was slowly fading.

"Don't you give up," she said sternly. "You're not dying on me Will Pinkerton."

"Did I get him," he said.

She briefly glanced in the direction of where Jesse laid and then turned back to him, "Of course you did."

"At least I gave as good as I got," he struggled to say.

"Don't talk like that," she said. "We're going to get you out of here."

She made another valiant effort to help him to his feet but he stayed down and eventually she let go of the dead weight. He could already see the grim writing on the wall and it was only a matter of time before a pragmatist like Kate saw the same thing. He began to work his way through saying her name. After calling out to her seven times an eighth plea of "Kate" got her to stop and sit down in the dirt beside him.

"I don't want to lose you," she admitted freely.

"That makes two of us," he attempted a joke but at her stern expression decided to add something else. "It'll be alright, you'll be alright."

"No it won't," she said grimly.

"Hopefully your next partner won't be as much of an ass," he tried again lightheartedly.

"I don't want another partner," she said. "I want you."

His mind drifted back to that first day when his father had introduced the two of them. He hadn't exactly had a good or fair impression of her. It was just another example of his father's boundless inability to trust him and he was frustrated that his father felt the need to send a babysitter. He had taken that frustration out on her in the beginning and if he was being honest every time his father showed up the familiar feelings of anger and something like jealousy flared up within him again. She didn't deserve that and that's why he enjoyed the times when his father was away most of all.

They had become a hell of a good team in the time between his father's visits and she had turned out to be one of the smartest and bravest people he had ever met. After seeing her skills for himself he could half-grudgingly admit to seeing why his father thought so highly of her. They were friends now, he was confident in at least that much, and anything more was too full of complications to be thought about in the moment. They were good for each other and in whatever form their relationship took or could have taken that was all that mattered in the end.

"Kate," he said drawing her back into conversation.

"Yes Will," she said.

"I'm glad my father brought you out here," he said. "I'm glad we became partners."

"Me too," she agreed.

"Stay with me," he said.

"Always," she answered settling in further with the ground.

He had often heard it said that a man should be able to choose when and how he met his end. Especially in the place and job they found themselves both he and Kate were unlikely to make it to later life in any event and so he saw no reason why both of them shouldn't be able to choose a good death in the field rather than one from disease or other means. That's what he had chosen before he even made his way out to the spot he and Jesse agreed upon he supposed. He had wanted this and no amount of words from his father, Kate, or anyone else were going to be enough to change his mind. He got to go out protecting the town and everyone in it from one of its greatest dangers and managed to take down that danger in the process. That was as good a death as he could have hoped for.

"You'll be alright," he repeated his earlier statement. "I know you Kate, you're strong and brave and much smarter than I could ever hope to be."

"I can be at peace with this because I know these people have you," he continued. "Keep them safe Kate."

"I will," she said.

"I know you will," he said as he began to feel weaker. He knew his time was at an end.

"I'll miss you Kate," he said.

He could see the brief flash of tears in her eyes as she said, "I'll miss you too Will," but she kept herself together, strong to the end.

He tried to get out a goodbye, but found himself unable to get the words out. It was just as well, she knew everything he had already said and could have said before he even rushed out to have this duel in the first place. That's just how they were, they didn't need words to communicate with each other; it's part of what made them such a good team over the past few months. As the darkness slowly closed in all around him the last images that flashed in front of his mind were those of their time together, however brief it may have been, because despite everything they had to go through he had never been happier in his life.

As the last breaths left Will Pinketon's body Kate Warne got up from her spot on the ground and moved over to the body of Jesse James which had ceased movement long ago. She gave the body of the young man who had caused most of her and Will's problems since the beginning one last, hard kick. With that she moved to mount her horse and inform the proper people about what had taken place and to inform Allan that he had a son that needed buried. She hoped that whatever Will had been searching for in all of this was worth it. No matter how hard she tried to wrap her mind around it she couldn't find a reason why it would be. Nevertheless she would carry his memory forward with her in whatever capacity she could still manage.


	2. What We Fought For

**Agents In The Field**

 **What We Fought For**

 **So this was my attempt to connect the show's canon to the actual events surrounding the Homestead Strike. It's actually a very interesting event that is part of the reason most people today have a negative view of Pinkerton agents. This isn't a 100 % historical representation however just me trying to tie the historical event into the show's canon so if you're looking for that you're going to be disappointed. I was listening to Mama, I'm Coming Home by Ozzy Osbourne while writing this. I hope you like it.**

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July 7, 1892

It had been a typical morning for Will Pinkerton. If his younger self could see him today he would probably scoff at how typical his life had actually gotten in the years since Kate Warne rolled in and turned everything on its head. There had been a few years, good years, where it seemed like every day was a new adventure with a new case and a new perp to keep their attention for a while. The west had settled down somewhat since then and so had they.

No, typical was what he had gotten used to over the past 25 years or so, and he was fine with that. There had been children, three, two sons and a daughter. They had all gone their separate ways and the last time he had seen them all together was at Kate's funeral. She was dead, his father was dead several years before that, and if he was being honest with himself he was just marking time until the Grim Reaper decided to pay him a visit.

John Bell was still kicking though and so was he and there was still work that needed to be done on the homestead so as long as they were still around they might as well do it. It was making sure the fences were intact and making sure the few sparse animals they still kept there had what they needed to survive the day. Hiring new hands would make the work go faster, but it would take away the personal intimacy he had with the ins and outs of the property. No, he needed something in his life that was still within his control and the work around the homestead would at least keep the property in decent condition for when it passed on into the realm of inheritance.

It had been a typical morning for Will Pinkerton, as typical a morning as he had had in a long time until he read the paper. The headline "Pinkertons Fire on Striking Workers at Homestead Plant Killing 9" stared back at him as if taunting. His brother had really done it now, fully turned the Agency into what he had always wanted it to be, his own private army to do with what he wished. There was a full page dedicated to the story, but he didn't need the grisly details. Gruffly, he put the paper down and began walking towards the only place he knew he could find answers.

Homestead, Pennsylvania felt a million miles away and as if it was crushing him at the same time as he made his way to the small plot of ground that held Kate's grave. The simple stone bared nothing but her name and the two dates that encapsulated her life, but all the same just seeing it made him feel immediately more at peace. He supposed she had always had that effect on him so her grave shouldn't be any different.

"He did it Kate," he said as he sat down on the ground next to the stone. "He actually did it."

"The Pinkerton National Detective Agency that we fought and bled for has been turned into nothing more than my brother's private army," he continued. "Everything we fought for gone like that."

If Kate had been there physically he assumed she'd probably lay out some well thought out argument about how what they were fighting for wasn't the Agency and what it stood for. No, she would say something about how they were fighting for justice and what was right, what they believed in. She'd say that whatever his brother did with the Agency from this moment forward it wouldn't tarnish what they had done under the same banner three decades earlier. They were who they were and they saved who they saved, brought to justice who they brought to justice and nothing would ever change the facts of that.

Even just having her in his head he wanted to believe her, wanted to believe he and his father had done enough for the Pinkerton name that his brother wouldn't be able to tarnish it, wanted to believe that he and Kate did enough for the Pinkerton name. He knew it didn't work like that though. The facts may remain the same, but people's perception of the facts could change in an instant and leave them as nothing more than two Pinkerton Agents along with whatever negative connotations came to be associated with that term.

He knew Kate's area of expertise lied more in the realm of the sciences, but she knew enough about history to understand that that argument, no matter how logical it seemed, was not how it worked. History had a selective memory, a very selective memory and he was pretty sure which way history would remember the Pinkertons if his brother kept going this way, and it's not like there was anything around to stop him. And he knew that Kate knew that too, she would have just put the argument forward to make him feel better about it. The people that mattered to him would know the truth, and that was enough for him, but society at large would only see a militant force shooting down strikers.

"We had a good run Kate," he said with a sigh. "I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world."

"Here's to us," he said pulling out the flask he kept on him at all times. "Here's to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency."

It would be several hours later, as John Bell was making his rounds around the property to make sure everything was in place before turning in for the night, that he found the body of Will Pinkerton, life gone from his eyes, slumped against the grave of his one true love Kate Warne. It was strangely poetic in a way he supposed. Without much preamble, he proceeded to lift his friend's body and carry it inside of the house to prevent the animals from getting to it. After sitting his friend's body onto one of the house's beds he moved out into the living room, where they kept the telephone, and proceeded to make three calls.

Andrew, Sarah, and William Pinkerton Jr. would all make the trip to Kansas City to attend the funeral of their father. It was a quiet ceremony without much pomp or circumstance. People from the town that still remembered the duo of Pinkerton agents that stood against the storm that was the west were there. Annalee was there with grey hair that maintained the length it had in her younger years. Kenji was there reciting words in Japanese that were probably some sort of farewell. Miyo was there crying into the shoulder of a tall man who had just been introduced moments earlier as her husband. It was like the reunion that they should have had twenty years earlier, before Kate's death. No, it seemed death was the only thing that could bring them together anymore.

July 8, 1892

The headline on the paper read "Will Pinkerton, Son of Pinkerton Founder Allan, Dead at 62".


End file.
